Rewind
by Colubrina
Summary: The discovery of an old spell book leads Hermione and Draco risk it all to stop the Dark Lord. ONE-SHOT.


_Rewind._

She's on her knees, coughing, spitting up blood. The battle is going on. She can't find anyone. Where's Harry? Where's Draco? Spiraling panic is going to pull her under, and Hermione has to fight her way out of it. She can do this. She can stay focused despite the noise, despite the fear.

Look up.

Monster. Black hair. Loud laugh.

"You have to mean it," the witch says. "You have to want to cause pain."

The Death Eaters never lack for sadism, that's for sure. Cleverness, maybe. Loyalty, absolutely. But sadism they have in abundance. Hermione knows what's coming next, but that doesn't mean she can brace against it.

Agony. Screaming. The battle is still raging on and when she looks up this time, she sees not Bellatrix with her mad hair and her spittle, but Draco Malfoy. His eyes are locked on her.

_Rewind._

A summer day in the garden. She might be four. Butterflies fly from her fingertips, and she claps her hands with delight. Her mother's in the window, watching.

"Honey, come look at this. Have you ever seen anything like it?"

Too far. Too voyeuristic to look back at a childhood still untouched by war. Too painful.

_Fast forward._

She's learned by now. You don't show anybody. Other kids don't like a show-off, and they sure as hell don't like a show-off whose parents have more money than they do. Hermione' gets ballet lessons and piano lessons and trips to Paris in the summer. It's enough to make her an outcast even without the tricks she can't explain. Even without her driving need to prove to all of them that she's right. To be smarter than they are, no matter the cost.

She's standing in an English language store in Paris, killing time while her mother looks for something to read. "I didn't bring enough books with me." A laugh. "It will only take a moment."

That's when the boy comes in. They size one another up with the unerring instinct of children outside their own environment.

"British?" he asks. It's the best thing to be. The only thing. British and magical.

She doesn't need to ask him. What else could he be with his pallid coloring? His hair thought about being blond but decided that wasn't quite enough and kept going to until it was nearly white.

"Polar bears don't really have white hair," she says to him. It's seemingly apropos of nothing. These are the kind of statements that keep her from having friends in primary, but he nods.

"All the hairs are translucent," he says.

"Where you from?"

"Wiltshire."

A couple comes in behind him. Tall, aristocratic, and just as pale as he is. They eye her with disapproval, and the woman says, "Don't touch anything, Draco. Your father wants to speak to the bookseller."

He rolls his eyes. "As if I would," he says, then adds, "Parents," in the direction of the girl with a sort of universal exasperation that makes her smile.

A snow globe sitting on the display next to her floats into the air, shaking its fake snow over its equally fake Eiffel Tower. She grabs it and shoves it down quickly, almost as if she's hoping he hasn't noticed. She's used to these things by now. A little ashamed of them. '_Freak_' echoes in the back of her mind, and rows of children tell her she's a faker, a liar, and a freak.

Draco Malfoy has a lot of faults, but he knows she's none of those things. His eyes light up. "I knew you couldn't be a Muggle," he says. Before she can respond, his parents have reemerged and are sweeping him back out the door, away from the contagion of this plebian shop hiding in its ordinary neighborhood. "I'll see you at Hogwarts," he calls to her, and then he is gone.

It's a sweet moment. The sort of thing you want to linger on. Too bad they can't stay in those five minutes before everything gets complicated. But that won't solve anything.

_Fast forward._

An older woman with a pointed hat right out of costume show is at her front door. Another Good day. But not far enough.

_Fast forward._

Draco Malfoy is sorted into Slytherin. And he's cheering, and she's looking at him because she remembers him, but he won't look her way.

"Don't bother with them," one of the older girls at her table says in a voice that carries across the loud hall. The snakes are meant to hear this. "They hate us on principle. House rivalry, you know. And they'll hate you even more than most."

"Why?"

"Muggle-born."

Such a simple phrase. Such an uncrossable chasm. She looks away and helps herself to one of the cakes piled in the middle of the table.

_Fast forward._

Keep your bushy head down, Granger.

_Fast forward._

She's coughing up blood. She's looking up, looking for him, trying to find him. Because maybe they aren't friends. And maybe he's on the other side. But he was still the very first person who didn't look at her magic as if it were anathema and she can't let him –

_Rewind._

She's cornered him in the hall.

"Get your hands off me, Granger," he says.

"I know guilt when I see it." She gives him a shove. "What are you doing now, Malfoy?"

"Nothing that's any concern of yours." He pushes past her so hard her hip smashes against the stone wall of the corridor.

_Rewind._

Draco points his wand at the unicorn. It watches him with eyes far too knowing. He mutters the spell, and a steady stream of light pours out of the unicorn and into him.

_Fast forward._

Hogwarts is on fire. It's burning down around her, and there's nothing but corpses on every side. "Somebody, come and get me," she's screaming and screaming. "I'm in here."

But it's so hot. It's so loud. Who knew fire could be so loud? And she's coughing and coughing because of the smoke and the —

_Rewind._

"It's just a stupid cat," Weasley is saying. They're having this argument in the outdoors, in public, where anyone can see them. She's holding on to her cat, and tears are running down her face. This has to be it. The end of her stupid crush. The realization that Ronald Weasley can be mean. That he's never going to be loyal to her. To Harry Potter, sure. But not to her. Not to the bossy girl who has to be right even when it drives people away.

_Fast forward._

"He's going to kill me Granger, and there's nothing I can do about it."

The Room of Lost Things looms over them, filled with the debris of a dozen generations of students. Hermione picks up a book and starts turning the pages because books are always a comfort. It's a black volume, with gilt lettering on the spine so worn all that's left is, **_i k ost owl_**. It's not the sort of book anyone looks to for answers. It's just that the weight of books can feel reassuring no matter how old and useless it is.

"You could try to defect," she says, but he shakes his head.

"My mother," and she nods because that she understands. Child soldiers are held in line with threats to their family.

"Try to survive," she says.

His laugh is helpless. He can't even talk about this to anyone but her. Survival isn't an option on the table.

_Fast forward._

Where is he? She's looking around the battlefield. An old block of stone works its way loose, freed by heat and fire. Thousand-year-old mortar can't withstand this much heat, not even with magical spells holding it in place. She's screaming, and nobody can hear her.

_Rewind._

"I hate magic," Draco says. He snatches the book out of her hands and shoves it back on the shelf. "It's not going to solve anything. What's the point of being magical when you die the same way Muggles do."

_Fast forward._

She's crawling now. She can barely get up thanks to the after-effects of the crucio. Damn Bellatrix for making everything harder. She wants to lie down and die. So much smoke.

"Granger," Malfoy is the one screaming now, his voice pushing against the roar of the fire. "Where the hell are you?"

One of the giant stone blocks works its way free and falls toward her. She looks up. It's coming. It's coming right at her, and she can't get away in time, it's going to crush her, and –

_Rewind._

"Granger! Where the hell are you?" She looks up and sees that distinctive blond hair gleaming through a gap in the smoke. She gets up, takes two steps toward him. He holds a hand out.

One of the giant stone blocks works its way free from mortar, liberated by fire too hot for even magical charms. It falls behind her, crashing into the place she'd just been. "Come on," he's saying. Demanding. "Do you want to die?" She lets him take her arm and yank her free, out of the building, into the fresh, cool air.

Survivors are standing in lines. They're all dirty and coughing because of the smoke. No one's offering them first aid or water or blankets. A man in a mask is laughing. He's got an arm slung around Narcissa Malfoy.

"Looks like the cost of household help just went down."

So that's how it is. They lost. She meets Draco Malfoy's eyes. He shrugs. Sometimes that's what happens. You fight the good fight, and it doesn't matter.

_Rewind._

"What the point of being magical," Draco asks bitterly. "We're all going to die."

"You sound like him," she says.

Draco snorts. He's half-crazed. Can't string three coherent thoughts together. He may be a lot of things. Selfish. Arrogant. Cowardly. But he's not like Voldemort. Hermione pulls the book out again, her hands pale against the dark cover. She turns it slowly around and hands it to him.

"We could do this," she says. Her finger is on a water-stained page, and Draco's eyes move back and forth across the spell – something that should have been locked up in the Restricted Section, or, better yet, burned as knowledge no one should have – and as he takes it in those grey eyes widen.

"There's too many of them," he says, but now there's hope.

"So, we let the battle come," she says. "Most of them will die. I'll send my parents away. You keep yours out of it."

"Maybe," he says, but they both know he means yes.

_Fast forward._

Hermione's bent over and coughing. Draco stands by his parents. He laughs as one of the masked Death Eaters claps him on the shoulder. "Took him a while to warm up, but he managed it," the man says. "Lit the first pyre himself."

_Rewind._

Voldemort and Potter are fighting. Potter's struck down, and the room stills in unbelieving shock. That wasn't the way anyone expected the story to go. The hero was supposed to win. Voldemort's gleeful laugh—almost a mad giggle – carries over the assembled children and Death Eaters.

"Burn it all down," he says. "We'll build the world we want from the ashes of theirs."

Someone nudges Draco, and he levels his wand at a pile of rubbish. This is the time to choose a side, and there's no question which one he'll pick. "Incendio," he says. The blaze goes up, hot and fast, and the Death Eaters retreat.

_Rewind._

"You're going to have to trust me."

"Won't that be fun?"

_Fast forward._

The Horcruxes are gone, thanks to Potter and his crew. All that's left is the one man. One impossibly gifted prodigy with decades of experience on the children fighting him. He might be unhinged, but that hasn't stripped him of his power. Might makes right far too often.

_Rewind_

Draco points his wand at the chicken. It's a one-word spell. Somehow, it seems like it should be more. Like it should be harder. Just like crucio, though, you have to mean it. The intention is the hard thing, but he's got that. Being trapped by Voldemort gives a person a lot of incentive to get things right. Light flows out of the bird and into him.

"Did it work?" Hermione asks.

Draco shrugs. The chicken is dead, but it's a bit tricky to know if you've absorbed the essence of its life. What makes a thing a chicken, anyway?

"Well, do you feel like squawking or laying an egg?"

He glares at her.

_Fast forward._

Draco pulls his wand out and rolls it between his palms. "Give them a little taste," one of the Death Eaters suggests. It's probably another test, but it's convenient so he'll take it. He points the wand at Longbottom. Hermione moves her head like she wants to look away, but she can't. She won't.

"Crucio."

The Death Eaters laugh because this is a good time. They've won, the castle is burning, and their youngest is hurling Unforgivable curses. Longbottom has fallen to his knees, and he's coughing up something thick and slimy.

"I'll kill you, Malfoy," he says. The words are brave and defiant and noble and may be a real problem in the future.

Hermione wraps her arms around herself.

"Your boy's growing up, Lucius," one of the Death Eaters says.

"They all do eventually."

Draco's face fills with an almost manic glee as he points the wand at another girl. Someone from Hufflepuff. A little nobody who decided she wanted to fight. Draco laughs as he says the crucio, and the nobody is left lying in the dirt. She doesn't even pick her face up to hurl threats at him. He spins in a circle, wobbles at the end. That happens when you turn in a circle too many times. Dizziness. It's a normal, human reaction, common to wizards and Muggles both, and no one suspects him because he's so very much one of them.

And then he says that one-word spell.

He absorbs whatever it was that made up the creature known as Voldemort.

And the man goes down.

_Fast forward._

He's kneeling in front of her. Magic has taken care of most of Hermione's injuries, but there's something very human about being nurtured, and she's not going to stop Draco from putting a washcloth into a bowl of warm water and using it to very gently clean the dirt off her face.

"Do you feel evil?" she asks.

He wrings the cloth out. "Not any more than I did before."

"No plans to take over the world?"

Draco runs a thumb over the perfect bow of her lips. "I think I'll settle on convincing you to go to France for our honeymoon."

"You haven't even proposed," she says.

_Rewind._

Most of her injuries have been taken care of by magic, but there's something very human about being nurtured, and she's not going to stop Draco from putting a washcloth into a bowl of warm water and using it to very gently clean the dirt off her face.

"We did it," he says. He laughs a little. Nerves, maybe. Relief. He'd glittered with so much glee, taken so much pleasure in hurting people in the aftermath, everyone had believed he was really and truly a committed Death Eater. Even Hermione. He turns on a charming smile now to pull her back from the edge of that horror. It's far more charm than Draco Malfoy has ever managed before, and she responds to it with a delighted smile of her own. No one could resist that grin.

No one ever has. No one ever will.

"Hermione Granger," the kneeling boy says. "Will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?"

. . . . . . . . . .

**A/N – Many thanks to xx-Kittenshift17 for beta reading. She's a peach, though as a dramione reader, I'm sure you know that.**

**Five years ago, in July of 2014, I posted my first fic. It's been a wild ride. Thank you for all the love and support over the years.**


End file.
